Lee Jeffries Black and White Photography

I luckily stumbled upon this amazing Lee Jeffries photo pictured above. I have always thought there was something supremely beautiful and classic about black and white photography. So, as a huge fan of this format I was instantly drawn to this image.

Lee Jeffries photographic journey began with a chance meeting with a young homeless girl in the streets of London. In 2008, the photographer was in London to run a marathon, and a day before the race he decided to wander the city to take pictures. This is when he aimed and focused his lens on a young, homeless woman.  His actions were not warmly welcomed by the girl and she began shouting at him. But instead of just taking off, Jeffries chose to apologize for his perceived intrusion. The 18 year old then proceeded to share her story with him. After this encounter Jeffries about the homeless completely changes.

Going forward he didn’t want to exploit these people or steal photographs of them. He also made sure he got to know his subjects prior to or while shooting them. Jeffries says, “I need to see some kind of emotion in my subjects. I specifically look at people’s eyes—when I see it, I recognize it and feel it—and I repeat the process over and over again.” He tried to keep the contact as informal as possible by rarely taking notes, and prefers to take pictures while he is talking with his subjects to capture the “real emotion” in them.

Self-taught and self-funded, Jeffries has used vacation time to travel to Skid Row in Los Angeles three times, as well as Las Vegas, New York, London, Paris and Rome, to continue his project. He uses his photography to draw attention to and raise funds for the homeless, posting the images to Flickr and entering the work into competitions. The proceeds from Jeffries’s Blurb book, which features homeless portraits, go to the Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles and the photographer allows any charity to use his images free of charge.

An Artistic Friend, Alanna Vanacore

These works below belong to 25 year old Alanna Vanacore, a friend of mine from my hometown Ormond Beach, Florida. I first discovered her talented pieces through her Facebook and Instagram page. She recently relocated to Brooklyn, New York to pursue her artistic dreams further. Her love of art began as a child due largely in part to her mother being a painter also. She says she used acrylics at the early age of 6. Today Alanna mainly uses graphite and charcoal for her drawings, and oils and acrylics for her paintings. Some her favorite artists include: Jenny Saville, John Currin, Egon Schiele, and Lucian Freud.

Casinos on Canvas

Lisa Esherick and Her Casino-Themed Paintings

Most casino art present today are in the form of photographs, and more often than not, these works of art portray only the aesthetics and architecture featured in casinos. Rarely do we find one that focuses on the existing dynamic inside these establishments. But one artist is bound to change all that.

To this day, thousands of painters have lived but only a few influenced the art scene. Picasso’s unusual representation of subjects in three-dimensional form brought cubism and inspired a generation of abstract art. Georges-Pierre Seurat’s pointillism technique is now regarded as among the most influential impressionist techniques among artists. But more than technique and style, art too is a tool of expression. In a male dominated casino industry, one woman took a gamble and found her lucky break in painting subjects found in casinos—Lisa Esherick.

Esherick may not be of the same stature as Seurat and Picasso, but she holds respectable status among her peers from the art community. So what makes her casino art special? For the Berkeley artist, the expressive nature of art is the difference maker.

“In working with the figure itself, I want to create a range of possibilities for expressive interaction that speaks of the human condition in our contemporary world. Painting is my way of articulating intangible feelings about ways of relating to the world,” says Esherick’s profile in Art Slant.

The artist has already experimented with several other topics other than gambling. She has painted a diverse set of scenarios ranging from day-to-day traffic to beach landscapes. However, it was the gambling industry that put her in the spotlight.

“Gambling didn’t grab a hold of her, but gambling art occupied the next seven years of her life, taking her to Las Vegas and then overseas to Germany and Russia, where she spent considerable time at the roulette tables,” says a report by Inside Bay Area.

Casinos are always open for business, and with the dynamic nature of casino games, it was no surprise that Escherick took fancy of the place. Unfortunately, land-based casinos are competing with the rise of online portals. Casinos and art enjoy a mutual relationship as both try to embrace art and casinos as one. This is because the developers of casino games have begun to see how important visuals are to the success of their games, and they’ve begun employing a variety of art styles in their offerings. From the unmistakably adorable cartoon art of the Pigs Party and Happy Mushroom games on Bubble Bonus Bingo to the realistic renditions of “Grease” and “Titanic”, slot developers are quick to rely on different styles of art to draw crowds in.Meanwhile, Esherick’s art motivates artists to portray casinos in a different light. As we find a decreasing number of casino patrons, Esherick and several other artists attempt to immortalize casinos on canvas.

Humans That Look Like Paintings

My previous art oriented posts were mainly centered around artists and their ability to make their art look realistic, also known as photo-realism. Alexa Meade,  however does the contrary. She seeks to make three-dimensional subjects look like two-dimensional oil paintings when viewed in a photograph.

In August 2008, the artist began to apply acrylic paint to the surfaces of people, objects, and walls in a broad brushstroke that mimics the appearance of brushwork in a painting. After 9 months of practice, she was able to unveil her “Reverse Trompe L’Oeil” collection in October, 2009. Her aim is to make her living models into flat pictures. The result is walking, talking optical illusions that confuse how the eye processes these objects in space.

The artist never attended art school nor has she ever taken advanced painting courses.

http://embed.ted.com/talks/alexa_meade.html

The following are some of her works, are you deceived? Alexa Meade paints on the surfaces of live human subjects, found objects, and architectural spaces in a way that optically compresses 3D space into a 2D plane when photographed.

Alexa Meade art

 

Leg Art by Jody Steel

Like most of us did when we were bored in class, Jody Steel chose to doodle. However, instead of using her notebook she decided to use her leg as the canvas and create some mouth dropping leg art.

Despite having no kind of formal training as an illustrator, Jodi’s dermal masterpieces look like the work of a seasoned artist and are sometimes mistaken as tattoos. And where you and I may have gotten scolded or punished for doodling in class, Jody was actually offered a job when one of the professors caught a glimpse of her leg art. A professor at Emerson College, in Boston, asked her to draw the illustrations for a ‘steam punk’ book called Steaming into a Victorian Future: A Steampunk Anthology.

Her pieces mainly utilize pens and black ink. Steel says she didn’t expect the fame she’s starting to receive on the Internet, “I really started because honestly, I didn’t have any paper around,” she told HuffPost Weird News. “I was drawing a lot in class, and people began to notice … I’m just really pale and my skin is most equivalent to paper.”

Some Great Illustrations by Nacho Diaz

The following images were created by Nacho Diaz.  I thought they were quite clever with little hidden interpretive messages within them.

 

These Are Not Photos!

Here’s my 2nd installment of amazing hand drawn pieces of art that could easily pass as photographs. At first sight they may look like some pretty sharp blue photographs, however all those pictures are actually hand drawn with a simple Bic ballpoint pen! Spanish artist Juan Francisco Casas uses up to four 14p ballpoint pens to create some incredible photorealistic drawings. His source of inspiration comes from his own photographs of nights out with his friends, and after viewing a number of his drawings you can only imagine how wild his parties are. I’m only posting his PG-13 rated images here, but let’s just say his female friends aren’t scared to bare all. Juan is considered one of the more influential young painters in Spain.

Here’s my other photorealistic post: NOT A Photo, This Was Created With A Pencil

Bansky

20 Great Bansky Street Art Photos

I first heard of and saw Bansky’s work when I watched a documentary a few years ago called, Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010). His street art to me is a fantastic combination of beauty and wit, all while addressing many social and political issues. His works can be found on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.

NOT A Photo, This Was Created With A Pencil

These are the artistic creations of a 22 year old Italian artist named Diego Fazio. He’s found a way to create photo-realistic drawings using a simple charcoal pencil.

It’s so unbelievably realistic that he had to put up some photos of the work in progress just to quiet the doubters on the authenticity of his work. I can’t blame them, heck I wanted proof myself, ha.

Diego is a self-taught pencil master. He started out as a tattoo artist, and developed a passion for creating photo-realistic drawings. Inspired by the works of Japanese artists from the Edo period, like Katsushika Hokusai, he managed to capture people’s imaginations with his precise lines and oriental drawing techniques.

Scroll down for a few of his drawings and/or check out his Deviant Art profile, as well.

Camera Arm

Dutch tattoo artist Helma van der Weide inked this clever optical illusion tattoo of a Pentax K1000 SLR for her daughter, photographer Lotte van den Acker.

Timing Is Everything…Perfectly Timed Photos